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snarf137's review against another edition
4.0
OK maybe reading this as an audiobook was a bad idea. This was overflowing with information and highly abstract concepts that I probably would have digested better in written form. This is one of the seminal works of Thomas Merton: a Catholic Trappist monk and keen proponent of interfaith understanding, exploring Eastern religions through his study of mystic practices. In particular, he often explored similarities between Buddhist and Contemplative Christian practices. I read and loved his autobiographical Seven Story Mountain, and was expecting to be similarly wowed this time.
The first third and last third were amazing, dealing with the need for contemplation and the state of a contemplative mind and the nature of God. The middle third dragged a bit, dealing more with theological concepts and more difficult-to-digest concepts of obedience, orthodoxy, and doctrine, as well as the pitfalls of self-love and hypocricy s that contemplatives face in their journey.
However (deep breath)... this was pretty amazing overall. Merton's thesis is essentially that contemplative prayer is the highest state of Christian communion with God, and is reached in a state of shedding all illusions and ephemeral parts of our identities, becoming who we were meant to be in and with God. In such a state, there is no lover or loved, there is just love- the distinction between the creature and God disolves, and there is just the hum of "I am". The experience itself is beyond description because it touches on the most sacred and intimate parts of our being, the parts that can only be experienced directly and then only as an imperfect memory or metaphor. I am so far from this state that I cannot even begin to have any opinions other than Merton's writing is inspiring, loving, gentle, and compelling. The writing is often beautiful and poetic, and the first third (again) brought me to tears and really made me evaluate the current (non) state of my spiritual life.
I can really see how Merton's explanation of the via negativa path to God, and the purely experiential nature of contemplative prayer led to his later interest in Zen Buddhism. In particular, it is clear that this tradition of Christian mysticism and Zen Buddhism share much in common in the actual style of contemplation, even though the doctrines are clearly different. He is definitely one man I would have loved to hear speak in person. His words are truly life changing, and he is probably a Saint. I definitely should read this again sometime because I feel like I only digested 50% of what was in here.
Some experpts, for later personal reference:
"WHAT is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as "play" is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash-at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."
"Life in this world is full of pain. But pain, which is the contrary of pleasure, is not necessarily the contrary of happiness or of joy. Because spiritual joy flowers in the full expansion of freedom that reaches out without obstacle to its supreme object, fulfilling itself in the perfect activity of disinterested love for which it was created.
Pleasure, which is selfish, suffers from everything that deprives us of some good we want to savor for our own sakes. But unselfish joy suffers from nothing but selfishness. Pleasure is restrained and killed by pain and suffering. Spiritual joy ignores suffering or laughs at it or even exploits it to purify itself of its greatest obstacle, selfishness.
Pain cannot touch this highest joy-except to bring it an accidental increase of purity by asserting the soul's freedom from sense and emotion and self-love, and isolating our wills in a clean liberty beyond the level of suffering. "
"The "ego," the "outer self," is respected by God and allowed to carry out the function which our inner self can not yet assume on its own. We have to act, in our everyday life, as if we were what our outer self indicates us to be. But at the same time we must remember that we are not entirely what we seem to be, and that what appears to be our "self" is soon going to disappear into nothingness."
"That is precisely one of the main effects of the fall: that man has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God. Man has been turned, spiritually, inside out, so that his ego plays the part of the "person"-a role which it actually has no right to assume.
In returning to God and to ourselves, we have to begin with what we actually are. We have to start from our alienated condition. We are prodigals in a distant country, the "region of unlikeness," and we must seem to travel far in that region before we seem to reach our own land (and yet secretly we are in our own land all the time)"
"It is freedom living and circulating in God, Who is Freedom. It is love loving in Love. It is the purity of God rejoicing in His own liberty.
And here, where contemplation becomes what it is really meant to be, it is no longer something infused by God into a created subject, so much as God living in God and identifying a created life with His own Life so that there is nothing left of any significance but God living in God "
But there is a higher light still, not the light by which man "gives names" and forms concepts, with the aid of the active intelligence, but the dark light in which no names are given, in which God confronts man not through the medium of things, but in His own simplicity. The union of the simple light of God with the simple light of man's spirit, in love, is contemplation. The two simplicities are one. They form, as it were, an emptiness in which there is no addition but rather the taking away of names, of forms, of content, of subject matter, of identities. In this meeting there is not so much a fusion of identities as a disappearance of identities. The Bible speaks of this very simply: "In the breeze after noon God came to walk with Adam in paradise." It is after noon, in the declining light of created day. In the free emptiness of the breeze that blows from where it pleases and goes where no one can estimate, God and man are together, not speaking in words, or syllables or forms. And that was the meaning of creation and of Paradise. But there was more.
The Word of God Himself was the "firstborn of every creature." He "in Whom all things consist" was not only to walk with man in the breeze after noon, but would also become Man, and dwell with man as a brother.""
The first third and last third were amazing, dealing with the need for contemplation and the state of a contemplative mind and the nature of God. The middle third dragged a bit, dealing more with theological concepts and more difficult-to-digest concepts of obedience, orthodoxy, and doctrine, as well as the pitfalls of self-love and hypocricy s that contemplatives face in their journey.
However (deep breath)... this was pretty amazing overall. Merton's thesis is essentially that contemplative prayer is the highest state of Christian communion with God, and is reached in a state of shedding all illusions and ephemeral parts of our identities, becoming who we were meant to be in and with God. In such a state, there is no lover or loved, there is just love- the distinction between the creature and God disolves, and there is just the hum of "I am". The experience itself is beyond description because it touches on the most sacred and intimate parts of our being, the parts that can only be experienced directly and then only as an imperfect memory or metaphor. I am so far from this state that I cannot even begin to have any opinions other than Merton's writing is inspiring, loving, gentle, and compelling. The writing is often beautiful and poetic, and the first third (again) brought me to tears and really made me evaluate the current (non) state of my spiritual life.
I can really see how Merton's explanation of the via negativa path to God, and the purely experiential nature of contemplative prayer led to his later interest in Zen Buddhism. In particular, it is clear that this tradition of Christian mysticism and Zen Buddhism share much in common in the actual style of contemplation, even though the doctrines are clearly different. He is definitely one man I would have loved to hear speak in person. His words are truly life changing, and he is probably a Saint. I definitely should read this again sometime because I feel like I only digested 50% of what was in here.
Some experpts, for later personal reference:
"WHAT is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as "play" is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game, and of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash-at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
For the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter much, because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed, we are in the midst of it, and it is in the midst of us, for it beats in our very blood, whether we want it to or not.
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance."
"Life in this world is full of pain. But pain, which is the contrary of pleasure, is not necessarily the contrary of happiness or of joy. Because spiritual joy flowers in the full expansion of freedom that reaches out without obstacle to its supreme object, fulfilling itself in the perfect activity of disinterested love for which it was created.
Pleasure, which is selfish, suffers from everything that deprives us of some good we want to savor for our own sakes. But unselfish joy suffers from nothing but selfishness. Pleasure is restrained and killed by pain and suffering. Spiritual joy ignores suffering or laughs at it or even exploits it to purify itself of its greatest obstacle, selfishness.
Pain cannot touch this highest joy-except to bring it an accidental increase of purity by asserting the soul's freedom from sense and emotion and self-love, and isolating our wills in a clean liberty beyond the level of suffering. "
"The "ego," the "outer self," is respected by God and allowed to carry out the function which our inner self can not yet assume on its own. We have to act, in our everyday life, as if we were what our outer self indicates us to be. But at the same time we must remember that we are not entirely what we seem to be, and that what appears to be our "self" is soon going to disappear into nothingness."
"That is precisely one of the main effects of the fall: that man has become alienated from his inner self which is the image of God. Man has been turned, spiritually, inside out, so that his ego plays the part of the "person"-a role which it actually has no right to assume.
In returning to God and to ourselves, we have to begin with what we actually are. We have to start from our alienated condition. We are prodigals in a distant country, the "region of unlikeness," and we must seem to travel far in that region before we seem to reach our own land (and yet secretly we are in our own land all the time)"
"It is freedom living and circulating in God, Who is Freedom. It is love loving in Love. It is the purity of God rejoicing in His own liberty.
And here, where contemplation becomes what it is really meant to be, it is no longer something infused by God into a created subject, so much as God living in God and identifying a created life with His own Life so that there is nothing left of any significance but God living in God "
But there is a higher light still, not the light by which man "gives names" and forms concepts, with the aid of the active intelligence, but the dark light in which no names are given, in which God confronts man not through the medium of things, but in His own simplicity. The union of the simple light of God with the simple light of man's spirit, in love, is contemplation. The two simplicities are one. They form, as it were, an emptiness in which there is no addition but rather the taking away of names, of forms, of content, of subject matter, of identities. In this meeting there is not so much a fusion of identities as a disappearance of identities. The Bible speaks of this very simply: "In the breeze after noon God came to walk with Adam in paradise." It is after noon, in the declining light of created day. In the free emptiness of the breeze that blows from where it pleases and goes where no one can estimate, God and man are together, not speaking in words, or syllables or forms. And that was the meaning of creation and of Paradise. But there was more.
The Word of God Himself was the "firstborn of every creature." He "in Whom all things consist" was not only to walk with man in the breeze after noon, but would also become Man, and dwell with man as a brother.""
mylaine_47's review against another edition
5.0
Ok. Wow. Need to reread this one, but for now: wow. Thanks Merton.
pkgonzales7's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
I think I prefer Merton’s works a bit more but I can see why this might be one of his most prominent as there are lots of gems to ponder in the numerous short chapters/excerpts. This is an important read for those who feel called to a contemplative path in Christ.
kamzilla's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
justjohnson93's review against another edition
5.0
Well, I think this might have been the best (at least the most meaningful) book I've ever read, so I am not exactly sure what to say here. I will provide the caveat to that high assessment that I would not have loved or even liked this book at other points in my life for varied reasons, so keep that in mind should you choose to pick it up. Nevertheless, this becomes an immediate classic for me that I will return to many times in the future.
"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence."
"Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence."
dgwright86's review against another edition
5.0
One of the top twentieth century books on Christian mysticism I’ve read.
mattmcmanus's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
I owe a great debt to Thomas Merton. His book, The Seven Story Mountain set me on a path towards the reconstruction of my faith. There are few authors who have challenged my understanding of the world and myself more than he has.
This book, New Seeds of Contemplation, is his attempt to explain the unexplainable. In it he explores the nature of God and how we become one with him through contemplation. What is contemplation? How is it different than prayer? Prayer tends to be very explicit and focused on the self. “I need help with…” “Give me…” “Give X to…” Contemplation is the emptying of one’s self and a bending of the will towards God, to share in and become one with his love.
I understand that sounds a bit strange. This topic can feel like the strange esoteric exercises of hermits and monks. In spite of this, I find myself compelled to continue to explore it. When I read the thoughts and experiences of Merton (among others) I begin to see experiences in my past with a new understanding.
For example, I often talk and write about how I nearly left the Christian faith. For a long time I considered that a bad thing, a result of weakness. I also viewed my coming to a new understanding of faith the correcting of a wrong. However, Merton describes a similar experience with a dramatically different evaluation of its quality:
Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial “doubt.” This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious “faith” of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion. This false “faith” which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our “religion” is subjected to inexorable questioning. This torment is a kind of trial by fire in which we are compelled, by the very light of invisible truth which has reached us in the dark ray of contemplation, to examine, to doubt and finally to reject all the prejudices and conventions that we have hitherto accepted as if they were dogmas.
Part of why I considered my struggle so bad, was that I viewed my doubt as a failure of faith. Merton, again, has a different perspective:
You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt. You cannot believe in God unless you are capable of questioning the authority of prejudice, even though that prejudice may seem to be religious. Faith is not blind conformity to a prejudice—a “pre-judgment.” It is a decision, a judgment that is fully and deliberately taken in the light of a truth that cannot be proven. It is not merely the acceptance of a decision that has been made by somebody else.A “FAITH” that merely confirms us in opinionatedness and self-complacency may well be an expression of theological doubt. True faith is never merely a source of spiritual comfort. It may indeed bring peace, but before it does so it must involve us in struggle. A “faith” that avoids this struggle is really a temptation against true faith.
It might be easy to dismiss all this by saying I was in crisis and was seeking anything to make things seem a little easier and to feel less guilty. I’ve wondered this myself. However, I am now years into this process and I can say now that my perspective has truly changed and I have Merton to thank. I see that period in my past not as one of failure, but one of darkness. It did not come as a result of failure, but from a loving God whose wisdom allows for growth to be born out of struggle. My understanding of who I was and what I thought my faith should be were hindrances to loving God more completely. When it was taken all away, for a time, I was left with nothing, which allowed me to start to see things as they could be.
That is why Merton’s work on contemplation is so compelling. You cannot talk about contemplation without embracing the reality of darkness and unknowing. My previous understanding of faith had no room for that. Even so, I cannot tell you where I have had a true contemplative experience. But when I read accounts of those who have devoted their life to the practice, I hear and feel echos of my own experience. Not trivial flashes of emotion here and there, but some of the most acute and painful moments of my life. I still don’t fully understand it all, but I know as I continue down this path, I am encouraged and I hope good will come of it.
josephpanthony's review against another edition
5.0
This book was formative for me as a youngster contemplating life, spirituality, and my own relationship with god.
prgchrqltma's review against another edition
3.0
DNF about 75%. I should probably read this during the day. Also, I react really strongly to the he/him language that feels exclusive of me. Of course, it's of its time, so everyone's mileage may vary.